First post, by Deksor
- Rank
- l33t
As I showed last week, I got tons of stuff : Bought these (retro) hardware today
So now in this topic I'll give you some update about the testing I made, the boards/HDDs/video cards I managed to revive (everything is bought as "Untested" and some of the things clearly can't work anymore, at least not with some repair)
So here are some boards I tinkered with :
DataExpert 8049 MISSING BIOS, and I can't find it anywhere on the internet. If you have it, PLEASE upload it 🙁
Now they look quite nasty, don't they ?
Let's clean them !!
Aaaahhh much better !!
Well now let's summarize. Before the clean, the tomato board was the only one to POST, the HOT 433 didn't work and the other were untested.
After the clean ... well it was the same ... But I noticed something odd with the HOT 433. First, the board definitely had some life left as my POST card did show, but its RTC chip was gone (someone clipped it off I believe). So I removed the pins that were left in the mobo, I installed a socket, put a new DALLAS chip ... and boom the board works 😁
Now I have some hope for the DataExpert as it also shows some code in my POST card meaning something's happening, but like I said, I can't find its BIOS rom on the internet, so until I find it, this board will remain dead ...
Now this leaves me the DFI super socket 7 board and the Octek board ... The octek board was super nasty and after the clean, its slots feel quite crusty ... getting the POST card properly connected to that board is quite hard. I sprayed some contact cleaner. It helped but it's not adequate. But at some point I got a POST code, so it may be possible to revive it as well, but I need to treat the corrosion inside every single slots including the socket ...
And the DFI don't want to turn on at all. And if I force it by shorting the PSU's pins, the board displays "C1" on the POST card and it beeps, makes a pause, beeps, makes a pause, and repeats that pattern forever. There's definitely a problem with some of the logic of that board somewhere that prevents it from starting when I short the proper pins, but I have no idea what circuit does that ...
I also tinkered with some boards and some HDDs. I'll bump this topic another time for these ^^. Just to tease you, most slot 1 mobos don't give any POST codes. Two have visible flaws : one is the ABIT bh6 which has a chip with a crater ; may be fixable if that's the failure and not a symptom of a greater problem, and the other one is a MSI one with bad caps) and all 386s are working or giving signs of life, but two have battery leakage that need to be treated asap and two have bad tantalum caps with some that blew up in front of me (now I'm scared to turn them on 🤣).
Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative